A Fun Fall Lesson with Inspiration from Romero Britto!

Hey, friends!

It's been a minute since I posted here...in fact, while I posted like crazy in July and August, I was absent all of September. Y'all kept me BUSY with orders of Larry the Line and the rest of the gang. I'm so glad you all are enjoying using my books in your art room. Nothing makes me happier! I love hearing from you all, whether it be via email or on socials. It's been so much fun creating books with themes that worked so well for me in my art room with you. So thank you!

That being said, I'm back at ya with a new art lesson that's totally versatile, meaning you can construct this lesson any way you like. Whether you do one of these draw-alongs, from pumpkin to leaf, hot chocolate to pumpkin pie OR have your artists draw all four, is totally up to you! This can be a quick lesson right before fall or Thanksgiving break OR a long format lesson. It's up to you! I did keep it simple with low-mess supplies. Here's what I used:

* Prang's UCreate Mixed Media Paper, cut into a 12" square

* Prang's color pencils

* Prang's washable markers

* Paintbrush and a cup of water 

(Full disclosure: I often partner with Prang and while I do love their supplies, that is also why I use them almost exclusively).

I decided to go with Britto as our artist inspiration because his work is a great follow up to the beginning of the year focus on lines and shapes. This lesson also talks about color as we are focusing on using the cool colors in the background and using warm colors (with the addition of green). Here's the complete video lesson:

Have fun!

Now that fall is here and it's time for all the cozy and slightly spooky vibes...it may be the perfect time to read Find Your Way to your students. It's a decide-your-direction tale of discovering who you are as an artist and an independent thinker while going on adventures with 7 of the world's most famous artists. I wrote this book to read to my students as they work...and you can hear a pin drop, I swear! 

For more details on how reading to your students as they work can have a calm and focused effect for a productive art class, check out this blog post here!

Dot Day Collaborative Lesson!

Hi, friends!

Well, it's the time of the year: Dot Day! It's quickly approaching on September 15th but...you can celebrate making your mark EVERY day of the year, right? So I put together a lesson just for you and your artists! 

For the FULL lesson details, please visit HERE! 

This lesson not only revolves around The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds but it also features the ROUND paper that I created with my friends at Prang!

This is a collaborative project you could do with ALL grades which makes it super fun. 

I decided to create this lesson with three different types of media...that way you could decide which one would best be suited for you and your artists...

Here's one with bleeding tissue paper and a line design review in permanent marker...

Oh! And I'll also show you the SUPER easy method that the kids can do to connect all of the lines in their circles so that the whole piece works together. 

If you are ready to venture into the world of tempra paint, I have that featured in the video too. These are giving me Romero Britto vibes!

If you want to explore with oil pastel resist and watercolor paint, I have that featured in the lesson video too!

No matter what, I know your students will love this lesson (and you will too!)

Have a great week, friends!

Let's Create Larry's Line-Finding Glasses!

Hi, friends! 

As you might know, Larry the Line is mighty popular this time of year as many of us art teachers kick off the new school year with a unit on LINE. In fact, I've been sharing a TON of line lessons here and on my YouTube channel. It's been so fun seeing folks use them with their artists! 

We've done a Larry the Line spiral snake here, a how-to-draw Larry here and a paper chain Larry here!

And today, I have a Larry's Line-Finding Glasses tutorial for you and your artists!

Here's what I would recommend:

* Print this totally free download on cardstock. This way a thicker paper backing, which I talk about in the video, will not need to be added.

* I also thought it might be interesting to pre-make a class set of 20 and then laminate them. This way, the kids can just enjoy the act of drawing lines with a dry erase marker and then go about their Line Hunting adventure. Once the activity is over, the glasses can be cleaned and ready for the next class. Yes, work for you on the front end but then you'd have them ready for your classes!

Free download here.

Of course, part of the fun is getting to keep the glasses...so that's totally up to you! Here's the lesson video:

I just think these are so cute! And a fun way to really get your artists looking for the lines that are all around them.

For a copy of my book Larry the Line, go here!

Have fun making your glasses and searching for lines with your Larry the Line Line-Finding Glasses!

Mixed Media Exploration and Elements of Art Review!

Recently, when I was working on THIS line design lesson...

Where I shared how to make black glue without actually making black glue...quick video here:

It got me thinking. If you can make black glue that way, then couldn't you do the same with any water-based marker on white paper? 

The answer, YEP! You can! And that's how this lesson came to be!

For this project, which I envision would be perfect for 5th grade and up, I started with a 12" square of paper, water-based markers and Elmer's Glue All. Check out the full lesson here:

Once the glue is dry, I used my paper cutter to cut the papers into 4 6" squares. Then I decided to do a mixed media exploration on each!

To alter this lesson, you could always NOT cut the paper and just pick one of the mixed meda methods to do on the entire paper. Just a thought. I did find exploring all of these really fun but I know that would take a several art class days...so I'll leave that up to you!

For the first one, I just used a permanent marker, a cup of water and a paintbrush. I used my Line Design sheet and a permanent marker for the first step. Then I added water to the marker lines to create a blurred line effect with a little bit of a tint of color.

For the next square, I used chalk. Whenever I use chalk in my art room, I always use a color wheel. I created this free color wheel download for you to use, you can access it here!

If you have hesistated to use chalk pastels in  your art room in the past, don't sweat it! I created a whole video and blog post of all of my chalk Tips and Tricks and you can see it here!

I also just recently posted a lesson for 2nd grade and up using chalk and line...and you can check that out here!

Okay, back to the lesson at hand! I LOVE chalk and my students do too. I really enjoyed creating this little chalk square study.

BUT THIS ONE...

Was even more fun! For this, students will use bright and light color oil pastel and saturate their paper in color. THEN...

Using a combination of black paint (I used acrylic but tempera would work) and a squirt of dish soap (I only had Dr. Bronner's on hand but Dawn or any other would work!) blended together well, paint over the areas you wish to do scratch art on.

Allow that to dry COMPLETELY before using a skewer to remove the paint and create line designs. 

I really recommend adding the dish soap. What it does is help the paint scrap off evenly and not in chips. I've tried it without dish soap before and...it just didn't work as well (chips. We had chips).

So fun, right?

And for the final method, we explore wet-on-wet with watercolor.

Now, when it comes to display, I laid my pieces back out like a puzzle. But these could be displayed individually, on in a vertical or horizontal manner...so many options! I'm so stoked about this lesson. I don't often do lessons for upper grades because I never taught beyond 4th. I do think this could be done with fourth (maybe after Christmas, when they are officially fourth graders) and definitely beyond. 

By the way, if you are looking for books, downloads and resources for all things art teacherin', I have a library of them! You can see them all here!

Line Designs with Chalk and Glue!

At this point, I feel like I'm spamming my own blog with LINE lessons! Just for a recap, I'll add links to them all right here:

* Line Sculptures

* Line and Shape Paintings

* All About Me Line Portraits

I'll be sure and do a Best Line Lessons post soon but if you are looking for more ideas now, see THIS review of my fave line lessons here!

And if you are looking for all of my Larry the Line lessons, see the end of this post!

Before we dive into the lesson at hand, let me just share my LOOOOVE of lessons with black glue! Now for some of these, I didn't know about this epic time-saving hack and I MADE my own black glue with ink and Elmer's Glue All. It's a REAL DRAG, lemme tell you: the bottles clog, the ink spills, the glue leaves a permanent mess because of the ink...it's all such a pain. I will say...the end result of the black glue versus this hack is better but not so much that it's worth the hassle. 

Here's some of my very favorite black glue lessons:

* Abstract Faces Inspired by Sandra Silberzweig

* Black Glue Tigers with Chalk

* Black Glue Abstract Fish

* Stained Glass Trees

When we use chalk, this is our set up: a divided tray with warm and cool colors and black, gray and brown removed. These divider trays were donated to the art room from a hospital...so I can't tell you exactly where they are from. BUT I do love that they keep the colors separate. 

We also use a tissue for cleaning our finger AND a laminated color wheel.

I always get so many questions on where I got the color wheel...I found it online YEARS ago and I couldn't tell you where. So...I made one for you! You can download it here.

And now for the lesson! Here you go:

I know art teachers tend to have a love/hate with chalk pastel (I just call it chalk)...it's messy and often the artwork smears. BUT I love the stuff. The colors are bold and bright. And if you use a color wheel and really teach the kids about analogous colors, I think you'll find it fun to teach. I use that same color wheel method you saw in the video for every chalk lesson.

For my VERY favorite chalk lessons and more of my tips and tricks, visit here!

When studenst are done with their chalk lessons, I will often spray their work with an aerosol hairspray like Aqua Net from the dollar store. It will dull the work a pinch and can leave little speckles of spray but...it works pretty good. As long as the artwork is not man-handled much once complete, the spray works fine.

And, OF COURSE, if you don't have my book on LINE and SHAPE already, now's the time to get 'em!

You can find Larry the Line here.

And Alfred the Ape Knows his Shapes here!